Welcome back, dear patrons, to the sixth and final chapter of Star Wars: Shadow War Episode I, Book I, Act I, Part I!

“You are taking far too much enjoyment from that.”

Gotta get it where I can, right?

“Be mindful of your phrasing, I spotted the Portable Pornography Music Synthesizer parked just down the hall when we arrived.”

Noted. Last time we finally had stuff happen! Sort of. Team evil shelled the Troggle village, killed most of them, and turned the rest into slaves. I think. There was mention of non-Force-sensitivity, but nothing was really done with it, so it’s possible there are some Darth Troggles wandering around now, or probably not. It’s unlikely to become a thing either way because this is the last chapter and the author can’t even bring himself to have Team Evil and Team Designated Protagonists interact in any way. Speaking of TDP, what they were up to last chapter was far less interesting. In that they arrived at the pony village that they were already in, tormented one of the ponies for daring to question that they were aliens from outer space, and then decided to finally make their way over to the dance party. It’s weird, but this chapter I hope they finally make it to the dance party so I can have some closure on it.

Oof, good point. Last time our resident Sith-bait Stu, Kennith, or whatever his name is, made landfall with his cohort of other forgettable, cut-and-paste characters. They quickly stumbled upon one of the resident ponies of the area, swapped exposition, then headed off to join the dance party already in progress. Meanwhile in orbit, Kaleb’s clone twin brother in everything except plot assignment waffled on about whether his hodgepodge fleet of 3,000 discount ships could possibly take on a single Jedi and his Celestial Uberwang. Eventually he decides his fleet is no match, probably due to genre savviness more than anything else, and decides to try to search for help on the planet, which pretty much limits him to an alliance with the Smooze.

“Which none exposed to the section title ‘The Smooze Campaign’ could possibly have predicted.”

And since the Smooze are pretty limited in attack strategy to blorping all over everything, we can all expect some absolutely riveting combat scenes in our future.

Hey, Patrons! Welcome back to Star Wars: Shadow War Episode I, and you’re just in time to see the Celestial Uberwang penetrate deep into the Unknown Regions.

“Must you phrase it that way?”

Absolutely. Want to handle the recap?

“Very well. The Jedi boarded their compensation-class Star Destroyer while the Shadow Order landed the bouillabaisse army onto the pony homeworld in hopes of defeating the most overwhelming enemy imaginable: The Spring Festival Dance Party.”

Sadly, the chapter was not nearly as interesting as that summary of it. Anyway let’s see what’s in store for us this-

Heyo, patrons! Welcome back to another installment of ‘Shadow War’, the Star Wars fic where nothing happens and the characters don’t matter! Crunchy is here again.

“You sound so pleased.”

Ecstatic. Anyway, last time more long-winded nothing happened.

“I question whether you could consider that chapter long.”

Fine, more short-winded nothing happened. The Cliff-notes of all the nothing is that Team Evil is landing their shit on the planet of Ponyland while Team Stu gathered a few juvenile recruits before being dispatched to explore what will coincidentally™ be the same exact planet that Team Evil is orbiting despite the region being nearly a third the size of the entire galaxy.

“Your Dickens would be proud.”

Compared to this, Dickens showed incredible restraint with his contrivances. In any case, let’s get on with the show!

“Yet, I am here to delight them. So delighted they will be, provided they comprehend what is best for their well being.”

Don’t threaten the readers. I would hate it if Jiwe would happen to find his way into Eliza’s emergency glitter reserve the next time you’re forced to watch him.

“You would not dare!”

Wouldn’t I? I mean, I certainly would hate to inconvenience Markus with cleaning that up.

*Crunchy glowers menacingly at Taco*

“I believe my influence may have created something unsavory within you. I would find that worth celebrating were it no so inconvenient. We shall put aside this discussion for now as I believe it is time to recapitulate, yes?”

It would be, but nothing of note happened in the first chapter.

“You forget the introduction of the author insertion and his Awesome McEvil brother. Ponyland was also briefly mentioned.”

*Taco, who is laying on the ground covered in glitter and confetti, lifts his head off the ground to peer around the riffing chamber with blood-shot eyes*

The hell am I doing in Riffcon?

“Such an unseemly display. Truly you monkeys have no sense of propriety.”

What are you doing here?

“The girls asked me to deliver your latest project. Given the source material, it was inevitable that you would seek out and forcibly procure my assistance, so I acquiesced.

Another Star Wars, then?

“Sadly, yes. Crossed with that show about ponies, no less.”

Well shit. Okay, give me a moment to gather myself and we’ll do this thing.

“Allow me. Darkwraiths! Unleash the roughage!”

-*A pressurized blast of coffee and a change of clothes later*-

That was oddly refreshing. Once you get past being burned by scalding hot coffee, anyway.

“I prefer to think of that as a bonus.”

Hello, dear patrons! This week we start in on another smaller project: ‘Star Wars: Shadow Wars Episode I’ which has the distinction of being the only Star Wars fics I’ve riffed so far this year!

“Clever.”

While we’ve already covered the two canons covered by the fic, it’s worthwhile to note that this fic takes place in an AU that revolves around Emperor Luke Skywalker ruling over a new Jedi Empire in the wake of the events of the New Jedi Order book series. It’s an AU featured in a handful of fanfics I’ve looked at, so apparently it’s a thing that exists outside of this particular fic. I’m not sure why this small collection of authors created this AU, as it clashes pretty hard with all the books leading up to it, but I’ve learned that fanfiction AUs rarely bother to attempt to seamlessly merge with the source material.

Title: better season 5 endAuthor: iamli3, who may or may not be Dakari King Mykan, and/or Caliborn from HomestuckMedia: AnimationTopic: My Little Pony, Friendship is MagicGenre: Adventure/Drama/AUURL: Chapter 1 (Did we mention recently the whole thing is one enormous chapter?)
Critiqued by AdmiralSakai and Serketry

Hello hello all you patrons, and welcome back to better season 5 end‘s… umm… end.

Last time Starlight Glimmer, freshly minted as N I G H T M A R E M O O N’s new apprentice, payed a visit to Twitlight Sparkle in her cell and got really torn up about ripping the DUMMENSHINAL TRAVIL scroll in half even though N I G H T M A R E M O O N was actively assisting her in making a replacement for it. Twitlight responded to this by angsting, dreaming about the Element Bearers and thereby giving away their location to N I G H T M A R E M O O N, angsting some more, and then finally angsting. That… was literally about it. We just left off as she was being led out of her cell by a N I G H T M A R E Guard, through the improbably-nearby town of Ponyville, and to a large platform set up in the middle of a public square which is clearly, obviously, and totally not meant for her execution.

Will Starlight Glimmer’s apprenticeship deliver her into her longed-for life of fast carriages, fast stallions, and rich, chunky revenge, or will she instantly be redeemed in the last fifth of the story for no good reason just like Mycan’t claims happened in the original show?

Will Twitlight Sparkle put into reality her vision of an inter-DUMMENSHINAL door-to-door friendship proslytization church, or will she completely dissolve into a puddle of thin, sorrowful gruel?

Will N I G H T M A R E M O O N ever actually get around to running Equestria, or will she just continue to recount the events of every episode of Season 1?

Will any of the rest of the main cast actually fucking show up in this story?

And will Mycan’t realize this was originally supposed to be a 44-minute TV-Y rated television show?
Find out on this, the final… umm… segment, I guess… of better season 5 end.